life has meaning only through enslavement

[miriam_e]

No, I don't believe that. But it is astonishing how many people do. I keep hearing talks on the radio and overhearing conversations in the supermarket, etc about what a problem unemployment is and how the politicians might solve it. I can hardly believe people are still worrying about that when in a few short years -- maybe a decade -- automation will be so common that most of the population will be what we currently refer to as "unemployed".

Instead of whining and wringing our hands over unemployment we should be looking forward to it. If handled properly this could be a wonderful new era for human society where there is plenty of knowledge (data is able to be freely propagated) and automation produces all the goods and perishables that we would ever need. Instead of training kids to be good slaves for the rest of their lives we should be teaching them how to value life and never be bored; how to find meaning and interest in the gift of their natural abilities.

Don't look to the politicians -- in most cases they are still living in the 1950s and becoming more irrelevant by the day. Vote the worst ones out, but don't expect much of the others. It is up to us to find our own way. Thank heavens for the net!

Comments

here, here!

[timecarrot.livejournal.com]

This seems like a good time to think about redesigning the economy, since we inexplicably failed to do so back when CH Douglas started saying this.

Re: here, here!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! I had no idea anybody else has said this before. Very cool! Thanks for the pointer. I have now downloaded his book Social Credit, freely available online at http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/socialcredit/socialcredit.htm
and will read it to see if he has some ideas I can use.

Amazingly I even found a reference to an Australian League of Rights, which I'd never heard of before, and the text they've made available of a talk he gave in New Zealand in 1934. It is at http://www.alor.org/NewZealand/Auckland%20Address%20of%20C%20H%20Douglas%20July-August%202003.htm

I'm very grateful to you.

Re: here, here!

[timecarrot.livejournal.com]

Robert Heinlein actually wrote a book involving Social Credit (more than one, really, but For Us, The Living explores it in detail). He turned me on to Douglas. Robert Anton Wilson has the U.S. implement a different form of Social Credit in one of his Schrödinger's Cat books. They both have interesting variations, I think.

Re: here, here!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I've read a number of Heinlein's books and heaps of his short stories, though it has been a long time now. They may be ready for re-reading.

I've started reading Douglas' book Social Credit after downloading the pages and painstakingly reformatted them for reading on my Palm. In doing the reformatting I caught sight of a few things which are a little worrying.

From what I noticed, he still seems to subscribe to the puritanical belief that paid work is what makes a person worthwhile... we'll see if that is what he was actually saying on more in-depth reading.

The other thing that bothers me is that he seems to believe the conspiracy theory that the Jews are orchestrating a plot to control the world. The documents he bases this upon would appear to be stuff which had been doctored by a rabid anti-semitic Russian (forgotten his name) some decades ago. He actually produced it with the aim of discrediting some of his (non-Jewish) contemoraries, but when that failed, released it as describing a Zionist plot. At the time the newspapers published it widely, until he was found out and the whole thing was dropped amid much embarrassment.

Oh, and the Australian League of Rights organisation I mentioned earlier... looking into them further, they seem to be nutty Christians.

What a pity. This and Douglas' apparent anti-semitism may explain why the whole idea was dropped.